A federal appeals court ruled the Idaho Department of Correction does not have to provide gender confirmation surgery to a transgender inmate until it says otherwise, and attorneys are scheduled to argue the case in court in May.
The Idaho Press explains, the stay came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. It halted the countdown that began in December, when the U.S. District Court ordered the department to provide gender confirmation surgery within six months to Adree Edmo, who identifies as a woman but is held in a men’s prison.
Doctors previously diagnosed Edmo with gender dysphoria, a condition in which the rift between a person’s birth gender and chosen gender identity causes them serious distress and disrupts their quality of life.
If Edmo receives the surgery, she would be the first Idaho prison inmate — and only the second in the nation — to undergo the procedure while in prison.
